NSFW: Five Videos Recently Banned From YouTube

Want a music badge of honor? Well, the key to earning one is simple, apparently. All you have to do is release a new, sometimes subpar single, and set it to a visual backdrop of either half-nekkid chicks scenes of violence and murder. Throw in enough stuff that the censors over at YouTube aren't desensitized to yet, and voila! They've banned you, and you've got viral-video magic by way of media hype. Now the general public wants to see that naughty banned video in the worst way.

That's the way to instant music-video fame according to R&B musician Jason Derulo, anyway. He's the one who brought you that annoying, mosquito buzz of a song "Watcha Say" a couple years ago. It didn't exactly push boundaries of naughty, but he's aiming for infamy this time and has even employed the help of 2 Chainz on his mission. Although Derulo's latest single, "Talk Dirty," was deemed NSFW and now has a fancy little warning box slapped across it, he's not quite where he wants to be in terms of escandalo.

In an interview with Australian radio hosts Kyle and Jackie O, Derulo laughed off the NSFW warning, saying he didn't find it racy at all, and joked that he'd like to be one of the videos that gets banned from YouTube altogether. Yes, because the world needs more pointless videos to prove what sex ponies these musicians think they are. Their music doesn't proclaim it enough.

Derulo's bid for video banning got us thinkin', though, and not about his naughty bits. We started thinkin' instead about all of the videos that have earned their YouTube banned badge of honor lately. What is is they actually did to find themselves in the timeout chair, and was it really that bad, or has becoming a YouTube pariah become some sort of genius marketing tool that immediately equates to iTunes downloads, and is therefore the ultimate goal of musicians and publicists alike?

Well, we set out to find out those answers because, well, why not? Dirty videos were involved, and we'll do anything to watch dirty videos at work. Here are the most recent videos banned from YouTube, ranked in order of naughty levels. If you can out-dirty these fools, Derulo, well, you're a better man than most. The ball is in your court.

5. "The Next Day," David Bowie
Bowie's video for "The Next Day" touted a religious theme as Bowie himself portrayed Christ among a star-studded cast of supporting actors including Gary Oldman and Marion Cotillard, and was banned by YouTube in May because it "contravened their terms of use." Perhaps it had something to do with the cast of religious characters engaging in some most unholy behavior, or maybe YouTube had an issue with Cotillard's blood-soaked stigmata wounds, but whatever the reason, YouTube pulled Bowie's video shortly after its release, but competitor Vevo chose to keep the video going.

Coincidentally, YouTube also reinstated it rather quickly, stating, "With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call. When it's brought to our attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it."

Oh, so it was all a misunderstanding and totally not a violation of the terms of use. It all makes sense now.

Naughty rating: Hardly. This video was "accidentally" pulled, remember? But it sure got Bowie some publicity in the interim, so whatever.

The naughtiness continues on the next page.

4. "Girl Gone Wild," Madonna
Madonna, who turned 55 last week, is still pulling the same attention-seeking stunts as she was back in her '90s video days, when "Justify My Love" was banned from MTV. In "Girl Gone Wild," (I really can't stand that name) she's playing the dominatrix role for several topless and oiled-up men, who dance around her while she grinds on walls. It was removed for breaching "community guidelines," but it's back with a strict over-18 rating.

3. "Blurred Lines," Robin Thicke
Good Lord. We've all seen boobs before; they're on famous statues and painting in the Louvre and they're also on your mother and your neighbor. They're just boobs. You might even have a pair yourself. They feed babies and make life kinda great.

Unfortunately the censors over at YouTube don't get that fact, and banned Robin Thicke's video for "Blurred Lines" thanks to a couple sets of them being featured along with some sexually suggestive business that happens along with 'em. Vevo kept the video, though, leading me to believe Vevo is YouTube's cool-ass uncle.

2. "Born Free," M.I.A.
There has been some back and forth from M.I.A. herself on whether her label is responsible for YouTube's ban of her very violent "Born Free" video. M.I.A. originally tweeted a comment about how her label, UMG, wouldn't show her video on YouTube, but she later backpedaled and said they were not at fault for the YouTube ban.

Either way, it doesn't matter, because the video was banned from YouTube thanks to a healthy dose of gritty violence delivered by what is depicted as a group of American military police, some of whom target children during the nine-minute clip. Nuff said.

Naughty rating: Less naughty, more gristle, but after watching it, I agree that it definitely needed to be given a strong warning label, if nothing else. You can find it on Vimeo if you look hard enough.

1. "Pussy," The-Dream
Naked twerking, baby oil on crotches, and the name "Pussy" all lend themselves to the credibility of the YouTube folks who banned this video. I thought rap had grown out of this whole phase a bit, but maybe The-Dream wasn't pulling the publicity he used to and had to go for the banning jugular by throwing it all in one hot mess of a video. Who knows.

Naughty rating: I don't know, and I'm not watchin' any more of it. You be the judge.